A Butyl Methacrylate Monolithic Column Prepared In-Situ on a Microfluidic Chip and its Applications

A butyl methacrylate (BMA) monolithic column was polymerized in-situ with UV irradiation in an ultraviolet transparent PDMS micro-channel on a homemade micro-fluidic chip. Under the optimized conditions and using a typical polymerization mixture consisting of 75% porogenic solvents and 25% monomers, the BMA monolithic column was obtained as expected. The BET surface area ratio of the BMA monolithic column was 366 m(2).g(-1). The corresponding SEM images showed that the monolithic column material polymerized in a glass channel was composed of uniform pores and spherical particles with diameters ranging from 3 to 5 mu m. The promethazine-luminal-potassium ferricyanide chemiluminescence system was selected for testing the capability of the column. A flow injection analytical technique-chemiluminescence (FIA-CL) system on the microfluidic chip with a BMA monolithic column pretreatment unit was established to determine promethazine. Trace promethazine was enriched by the BMA monolithic column, with more than a 10-fold average enrichment ratio. The proposed method has a linear response concentration range of 1.0x10(-8) - 1.0x10(-6) g.mL(-1) and the detection limit was 1.6x10(-9) g.mL(-1).